GVI Kenya

Category: Coastal Forest, Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Kaya, Mangroves, Shimoni Forest | Date: Oct 19 2009 | By: gvikenya

If you cast your eyes back over a few of our blogs recently you’ll read about the tourist trail that Friends of Shimoni Forest are creating.  This trail is going to run through Shimoni forest to show tourists some of the amazing flora and fauna to be seen, it will take them on a visit to a couple of the sacred Kaya’s or traditional religious sites, and it will take them past some of the amazing mangrove forests that run along the whole eastern coastline. 

An example of some of the mangroves

Mangroves are some of the most amazing trees in the world.  They tend to inhabit coastlines, estuaries or river mouths, and form some of the most critical habitats on the planet.  They act as nurseries and hunting grounds for countless aquatic species, as well as a home to many terrestrial species such as baboons and genets.  They also act as a buffer zone between fresh water bodies and the sea for runoff, silts and pollution.  They are also the only tree species that can exist in salt water!

Mangroves happily exist on beaches

Because of their importance, coupled with the fact they are exceptionally cool, means they are a site not to be missed on the tourist trail.  There is one particular spot where the tourists are going to be taken where at least five different species of mangrove can be seen, and where they extend unbroken for kilometers. 

The original idea was to create a boardwalk through the mangroves, which the tourists would be taken along.  This idea was scrapped, mainly because there are several mangrove boardwalks already in the area, and we wanted ours to be extra special.  So we have come up with the idea of a viewing platform!  We want to build a very tall (and very safe of course…) structure of some sort, on which the tourists can sit, drink a cup of chai and look out over the huge expanse of mangroves to the east, and the towering trees of shimoni forest to the south and west.  We think this will deliver a unique experience to people who have come to see this stunning area. 

One of the magnificent trees of Shimoni forest

Of course there are going to be many issues involved in the creation of this structure.  We are not sure yet what materials will be used in the construction, but bamboo has been suggested already.  The structure will need to be built on coral rag (fossilised coral), which will not be the simplest base for a tall structure…!  Then of course there is the issue of finances, which as ever, will probably be the hardest to overcome.  But overcome it shall be!  It will be the best view in Kenya (excluding Mount Kenya perhaps…)!

Tags: aquatic species, baboons, bamboo, boardwalk, buffer zone, chai, coastline, coral rag, critical habitat, estuaries, fauna, finance, flora, fossilised coral, fresh water bodies, Friends of Shimoni Forest, genets, hunting grounds, issues, Kenya, mangrove forest, materials, Mount Kenya, nurseries, planet, pollution, river mouth, runoff, sacred Kaya, Shimoni Forest, silts, structure, terrestrial species, tourist trail, traditional religious sites, unique experience, viewing platform

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Category: Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Community Conservation, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Kenya Wildlife Service, Logging, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest | Date: Oct 15 2009 | By: gvikenya

East African coastal forests are some of the most critical habitats for wildlife conservation in the world. Once upon a time they were a continuous belt that stretched from Somalia down to Mozambique, and were home to some of Africa’s most diverse and unique wildlife. Unfortunately today, what remains are small, isolated and fragmented patches, in which the wildlife is becoming more and more vulnerable.

 One of the many new roads scarring the forest

GVI has been conducting disturbance surveys in Shimoni forest for over three years now, and have a solid and robust set of data, which highlight the plight of this beautiful area. The main aim for our research in the forest, is to be able to hand it over to Friends of Shimoni Forest (a community-based organisation), which will empower them to lobby, apply or petition for things like land allocation or protective status for the forest.

The work of illegal loggers

We have been very encouraged recently however, as government organisations and the local administration have actively approached us for our data and results, as they too are very concerned with the level of destruction. Off the back of this, we have spent a lot of time putting together a disturbance report, which summarises our results over the years. This report has been written on behalf of Friends of Shimoni Forest, and has been submitted to Kenya Wildlife Service, Kenya Forest Service, the Chairman of the County Council, the District Commissioner, the East African Wildlife Society and the IUCN.

A charcoal pit in action

It is massively encouraging to know that our results are being looked at by so many people, and that the number and range of people concerned with this destruction is ever increasing. We cannot wait to work with everyone in the future, so that together we can put a stop to it.

Tags: , administration, Chairman of the County Council, Charcoal Pit, critical habitat, data, destruction, District Commissioner, disturbance, diverse, East African coastal forest, East African Wildlife Society, fragmanted patches, Friends of Shimoni Forest, government organisations, illegal loggers, isolated, IUCN, Kenya Forest Service, Mozambique, results, robust, Somalia, surveys, unique wildlife, vulnerable, wildlife conservation

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Category: Community Conservation, Ex-poachers, Tsavo West Sustainable Development Programme | Date: Sep 15 2009 | By: gvikenya

So, as I wrote about before, a small team of us had two weeks to lay a 3.5km water pipeline from Salita bore hole to Kasaani village. And bring them a water supply for the first time in living memory.

We didn’t have any kind of modern machinery to help us. Instead we had a collection of hoes and spades. And 3.5km of red earth baked rock hard by the Tsavo sun. However we also had the community members of Kasaani, by our sides, literally day and night; to teach us their digging techniques, to swell our numbers from 7 to over 70 on some days, to sing us songs, tell us stories, make us laugh when the going got beyond tough, to make us cups of hot sweet Kenyan chai at the end of a long day, even to cook us dinner when we barely had the energy to walk home. They sat with us around the campfire until we went to bed, and they were there waiting for us at sunrise the next morning.

Their belief in the project and their commitment to making it work, within our 2 weeks, left us with no doubt that it would happen… even on the morning of day 2, when we returned to Salita village to admire the maiden 80m of trench we’d dug the first day… only to find there was no trench. It had been filled in. In its place was a group of rather upset, rather intimidating, Maasai women. It turns out that despite the project leaders dutifully going through the process of informing all stakeholders, including the Maasai leaders, the message had not been passed down to their Maasai community. In a region where living is a daily struggle and resources hard to come by it is understandable that the women of the community were alarmed by the ’sudden’ rush of activity to divert precious water from their borehole. Over and above that, there are certain protocols that should be respected!

Disheartening as it was to see our previous day’s hard work undone, it was an interesting and very genuine cultural insight, as members of Taveta District council teamed up with the Maasai leaders to explain the project, explain the surveys that showed there was sufficient water in the borehole to supply both villages, and thanks to the local MP, to promise a new water pump that would actually increase the flow of water through their tap. So by mid afternoon, with protocol duly complied with, we were back with the chattering, smiling Maasai women who had watched us the day before and more importantly back with spades and hoes in hand. We made sure we reached 100m before putting them down, just to feel that we had made some progress that day.

The rest of the week was thankfully less ‘eventful’, characterised by a daily increase in blisters, sore muscles and physical exhaustion! The ground was hard… very very hard. Even with up to 30 of Kasaani’s human digging machines putting us to shame, were closer to a third of the way by the end of week one, not half way where we needed to be! The weekend off became just the Sunday off as we spent Saturday playing catch up until we could no longer physically raise a hoe above our heads.

Fortunately the villagers of Kasaani spent the weekend rallying the troops and with some astute negotiations from David the chairman of the Kasaani ex-poachers group, the following Monday saw 50 villagers join us. Before the end of week 2 we had close to 80 and come Thursday morning we had the privilege to be laying 3.5km of pipes along a trench that stretched from Salita to Kasaani… 3.5km of blood, sweat and tears!

Standing in Kasaani village at 8pm on Thursday night to watch the first water flow down the pipe, it was almost too close a call for comfort… but we had the sheer overwhelming joy of seeing water make its way, finally, to Kasaani. Not quite all the way; a dodgy connection along the pipework meant we didn’t quite get to see it flow from the tap, but the hard work had been completed and we could leave Kasaani Friday morning knowing that all that stood between the villagers collecting water from their very own supply were a few hours of tinkering with pipe connections.

The final sighs of relief and tears of emotion came the following Tuesday morning. David called to tell us that the villagers of Kasaani were filling up their 20l water containers from the tap in their village! But the actual reason he called was simply to thank us… they finally had water in their village and it meant the world to them. 

Tags: ex-poacher groups, kasaani village, salita village, tsavo west national park, water access, water pipeline

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Category: Community Conservation, Ex-poachers, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Tsavo West Sustainable Development Programme | Date: Sep 09 2009 | By: gvikenya

It was back in early 2007 that GVI first met and began to work with the community of Kasaani village… in many ways your ’stereotypical’ rural dusty Kenyan community trying to scrape a living from the land.

The Tsavo landscape around Kasaani village

In their case the land lies on the very edge of Tsavo West National Park. The landscape is stunning with views of Chyulu Hills and Taita Hills dotting the Kenyan plains to the North and East, the impressive North Pare Mountains of Tanzania to the South and, when the clouds clear, the majestic Mt Kilimanjaro to the West.

Collecting water from the neighbouring village of Cess

However it makes for tough living, the rains so unpredictable that their efforts at subsistence farming are more like a lottery than a livelihood. It’s not just the crops that suffer from lack of water; the community of Kasaani have never had a water source in their village and normal daily life requires the men, women and children to make a 5km round trip to their nearest source. Those lucky enough to have a bicycle can fetch 60l at a time, on foot you have to triple the number of journeys. Beatrice highlighted just one example of how they are forced to economise on water when she pointed to a group of children and told me how they don’t wash their children’s clothes when they need to because they just can’t spare the water.

Some of the curious children at Kasaani

Poor access to potable water is cited as one of the key objectives of the millennium development goals. So getting water to this community that we have been working with to promote sustainable alternative livelihoods in place of poaching and the bush meat trade has become a priority… with volunteer manpower and some funding sourced, we set ourselves the challenge - 3.5km of trenches to be dug to run a water pipeline from the borehole at Salita village.

We teamed up with Taveta District Council’s Constituency Development Fund to co-finance the project and bring the expertise, and we, our volunteers and the ex-poachers of Kasaani teamed up for two weeks of digging.

At the outset it seemed a huge task for our team armed only with pangas, hoes and spades but when on the first day we took the 5km round trip with a 20l container to get our own water the value of the project struck home and the seeds of determination were sown.

Our own attempts to fetch water from the nearest supply

Stay tuned for our progress,

 Corti

Tags: alternative livelihoods, bush meat trade, sustainable development, tsavo west national park, water access

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Category: Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Community Conservation, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 26 2009 | By: gvikenya

So everyone knows about the problems related to unregulated, inefficient and illegal charcoal burning.  It’s very easy for one to sit back and point the finger at the people conducting these activities, labeling them criminals.  The real issue however, is slightly more complex than that.

We have been conducting research in Shimoni forest for over three years, and have been working with the community group Friends of Shimoni Forest for two and a half years.  Through all of this we have had a lot of experience with the issue of charcoal burning, and have countless meetings (both organized and impromptu) with the charcoal burners themselves.  What we’ve found in the majority of cases, is that these people do not want to be charcoal burning any more than we do.  The difference being, we have the luxury of choice.

The result of a charcoal pit 

The vast majority of people in this area are living below the poverty line, and are desperately poor.  They have families to feed and school fees to pay for, and they don’t have any choice.  They know charcoal burning is illegal, and they know it does huge damage to the forest.  Most of them would muc rather be doing something else, but if it comes down to feeding their families – it’s not even a choice.  We have been asked by so may of them to find them alternatives, to offer them a choice.  And if a choice was offered, they would happily give it up.

An earth-mound kiln ready to light 

So that’s our mission.  The solution to the problem is clear: find an alternative to charcoal burning.  One thing we need to remember is that everyone in the entire area (and most of the country) use charcoal to cook.  So not only do we need to find an alternative income for the burners themselves, but we need to find a charcoal replacement otherwise we will have only solved half of the problem.
The obvious way around this is combine the alternative livelihoods with the production of alternative, forest friendly charcoal!

To the internet!  I will be back in the next day or two with what I’ve found…  

Tags: , alternative livlihoods, charcoal, Charcoal Burning, criminals, Friends of Shimoni Forest, inefficient, poor, poverty line, Shimoni Forest, unregulated

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Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Kaya, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 19 2009 | By: gvikenya

Hello there,

My question for the day: how do you find Shimoni Forest? Well, a good place to start is the Lonely Planet…

A year ago when we were in the early stages of planning community-based eco-tourism with guided walks in Shimoni Forest to see the beautiful Angolan black and white colobus monkeys in their natural habitat as an alternative, sustainable use of forest resources, we had a surprise visitor… a travel writer from the Lonely Planet.

We plied him with as much information as we could about the planned guided walks in Shimoni forest and also community-based cultural tourism in Mkwiro, where we have our marine research base and work closely with a community that has many challenges in accessing the tourism revenue that Kisite Marine Park brings to the area. It is fair to say that at the time, everything was very much a ‘work in progress’ and we have continued to support the development of these initiatives over the last year.

But I am ecstatic to report that the Lonely Planet put their faith in our optimism, and have put both Shimoni Forest and Mkwiro village on the map - or at least in the pages of their latest edition of the Kenya Lonely Planet. This is about the best free marketing we could have hoped for.

In actual fact, the first we knew of Shimoni and Mkwiro’s recent rise to backpacker prominence was when an excited Faridi, our friend in Mkwiro, received a phone call for a Mkwiro homestay booking. Within days Athumani, treasurer of Friends of Shimoni Forest, had an enquiry about a guided walk in Shimoni Forest. It took a few more days before we found out where the leads had come from, and it gives us a huge amount of encouragement. So now the challenge is on to get the communities up to speed and delivering a professional, enjoyable and worthwhile eco-tourism experience, but it is a challenge we are relishing!

As you have been reading we have been out cutting the tourist trails but to ensure we are offering an eco-tourism experience that is both professional and educational, we really need to find financial support for Friends of Shimoni Forest; to access some of the sacred kaya sites over the coral rag we will need to construct a raised boardwalk to keep visitors safely on their feet, we hope to compile signs and information boards and an information centre with restaurant to enable visitors to spend the day exploring the rich forest wildlife on their ‘Shimoni safari’!

We see this as an invaluable opportunity to raise awareness about the conservation of Shimoni’s coastal forest and the wider eco-region and to engage the local community in generating sustainable revenue from their forest resources and wildlife rather than exploiting them through extraction of timber and charcoal. Our coastal forests are a Global Biodiversity Hotspot and it seems only fitting that we tap in to the global community to support their conservation. So we are asking all of you that would like to help contribute to community-based conservation in Shimoni and safeguard the future of the colobus in their natural habitat to consider donating towards this cause.

The support of the Lonely Planet has really instilled the confidence in us all here in Shimoni to make this happen and we hope that it will instill confidence in you to donate the much needed funds.

Here’s to a brighter future in Shimoni,

Corti

Tags: angolan black and white colobus, Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Friends of Shimoni Forest, lonely planet, Shimoni Forest

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Category: Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Environmental Education, Wasini Locally Managed Marine Area | Date: Aug 18 2009 | By: gvikenya

Thursday was a slightly different day for the marine team, as we headed to the other side of Wasini Island to give a series of lectures to the Wasini Locally Managed Marine Area (WLMMA) group. We headed out from Mkwiro in two groups; one on foot along the path of the mangroves on the north side of Wasini Island and the other in Squirrel, our boat, travelling west along the channel to reach our destination, Wasini Village.

On our arrival we were ushered to the local football club building by Feisal, one of the committee members of the WLMMA, the group we would be giving lectures to for the day. We waited patiently for the rest of the villagers and members to arrive. The day began with a prayer by one of the village elders, a man of eminent presence, dressed from head to toe in flowing white with a kofia, but also with a touch of the modern day with a hearing aid and flashy sunglasses. Before the presentations kicked off everyone introduced themselves, and we learnt that amongst the members present there were several fishermen and elders of the village.

 Sergi giving a presentation

The Wasini LMMA committee began in 2003, when PACT Kenya visited several villages around the Shimoni peninsula area of the south coast. Their aim was to educate the people of these areas on the value of the environment around them and ways to conserve it, as well as highlighting particular marine areas near the villages that were susceptible to the negative impacts of tourism and over-fishing. The locally managed marine area of Wasini runs from the west tip of the island around the coast finishing mid-way along the north side of the island, encompassing several areas of mangroves and also the reef in front of the village. The group have already introduced and enforced the use of mooring buoys due to the devastating impact of the anchors of the many dolphin dhows that stop to have lunch in Wasini village. They also have daily boat patrols to apprehend anyone using illegal fishing techniques that damage the reef, including spear-gun and dynamite fishing.

 Emma mid-presentation

The group’s main project at present is to take tourists out to a section of the reef for snorkelling trips. So our job was to give lectures and educate the group on several aspects of the marine environment. The lectures included conservation, mangroves, marine mammal biology, whale and dolphin species, sea turtles, reef fish, marketing and company etiquette. The presentations went brilliantly with the students being extremely involved, asking many questions whilst also teaching our volunteers; Kiswahili names and some local traditions.

However we did not spend the whole day in lectures and there was time to have a chai and cake break, lunch in a new eco-friendly restaurant with a delicacy of sea grass on the menu, and a game of football with some of the local children. We were also taken out to the snorkelling area which was an amazing experience. The guys had warned us that we would not see fish any where near the size of the fish found in Kisite-Mpunguti MPA, but this did not damper the experience at all, it just meant everything was miniature! Amongst the many fish species observed we saw anemonefish, an Indian lionfish (Pterois muricata) lurking beneath an over hanging rock, Black-saddled tobies Canthigaster valentine, juvenile Black snappers (Macolor niger) and an Emperor angelfish (Pomacanthus imperator) elegantly gliding around the reef. All in all a very rewarding day for everyone involved!

Tags: anemonefish, black snapper, cake, chai, Community Conservation, emporer angelfish, indian lionfish, lectures, local traditions, marine environment, marine mammal, Wasini Locally Managed Marine Area, workshop

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Category: Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Kaya, Mangroves, Turtles | Date: Aug 17 2009 | By: gvikenya

Howzit!!

My name is Nic. I am a conservation student from South Africa. I have joined Global Vision International (GVI) as a conservation intern to gain experience in the field of marine biology. I have been with GVI for 7 weeks with a further 13 weeks to go.

In accordance with my internship project on the socio-economic impact and tourism strategies of Funzi Island, this involves the establishment of a baseline review of the turtle conservation efforts on the Island. It calls for me to:

• Identify areas that will require further development with direct and indirect benefits for the Turtle Conservation Groups (TCG) and that of the local turtle populations;
• Identify breaches of local laws and legislations that protect the turtles;
• Research alternative conservation strategies;
• Ways in which the GVI can assist the TCG’s in their endeavours;
• Look at ways to increase eco-tourism sustainably and build local awareness of sea turtle conservation;
• Identify environmental impact associated with tourism of the local sea turtle population and hence find the best measures in which to mitigate each impact.

 Funzi Island

Sergi (marine science officer for GVI), and I made our way for the weekend to meet up with Douglas, who works for KESCOM and Ali Vuyaa the head of the local turtle conservation group on the Island, Funzi Turtle Club (FTC).

We arrived at Bodo and where transported via the FTC’s boat to the Island. The weekend was peppered with activities which included: a meeting on conservation strategies that are in place and ways to better future endeavours on Funzi, and the local communities involvement in turtle conservation on the island, a walk through the forest where exotic fruits were tasted and tantalised our palates while local monkeys swung freely through the canopy above, a turtle nesting site was visited on a excluded beach cove, a village tour that was undertaken, lunch at a local restaurant had, a visitation of the islands holy kaya’s, meeting with local community involved with the FTC and anti-poaching strategies as well as  being shown the local handicrafts made from sandals collected from beach clean ups and a mangrove tour.

 One of the sacred Kaya’s

A down side to this visit to this magical place was to see the amount of destruction created by land developers on the forest and mangroves, which the local community are trying to rectify through the TCG’s involvement and the assistance of GVI and KESCOM.

 Some of the recent destruction

The island of Funzi is a marvel and the sights and people create a magical ambiance which should be protected, explored and maintained. I look forward to more visits in the near future and working closely with the TCG’s and local communities, in which the partnership between them and GVI will develop their eco-tourism in a sustainable way.
Funzi Island must remain a majestic, tranquil, beautiful island and I will happily be apart of its positive change and development in the future.

Nick with members of KESCOM and Funzi Turtle Club

Tags: anti-poaching, community based organisation, Community Conservation, conservation stratedies, deforestation, destruction, development, funzi bay, Funzi Island, Funzi turtle club, kaya's, KESCOM, turtle nesting

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Category: Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Ex-poachers, Tsavo West Sustainable Development Programme, Uncategorized | Date: Aug 16 2009 | By: gvikenya

There has been a lot happening recently on our sustainable development programme on the edge of Tsavo West, where we are working with former wildlife poachers in Kasaani, Kidong and Mahandakini to find alternative ways to earn a living that enhance conservation rather than threaten wildlife. We have very exciting news to report from Kasaani but will start with Kidong…

Our team returned from Kidong very excited and clutching a box of new aloe vera soaps! One of the key objctives of our visit to Kidong had been to assist the community with the final stages of producing and packaging natural soaps to sell to tourists in Kenya… and we did it!

The community of Kidong learn how to make soap over a year ago; however more recently GVI has been helping the community group develop this recipe in to a higher-end product that could be marketed to tourists. The soaps are made start to finish by members of the ex-poacher community group and are packaged using natural materials including sisal fibres and recycled paper made using elephant dung for the labels. The looks of surprise, contenment and achievement on the face of some of the older men of the Kidong group as they wrapped soap with sisal string, tied beads on and stamped their recycled paper was very special.

The rationale behind producing soaps that can be sold to tourists is to enhance the markets and profit margins for the group. The community will continueto make their more basic neem soaps for the local market in and around Taveta which means they don’t end up wholly dependent on tourism which is not necessarily the most reliable market in Kenya.

The other key objective of the trip to Kidong was to was to continue to assist the group with the development of their cultural centre  as a community-based eco-tourism initiative. It was a succesful week teaching the community how to cook panckaes with honey-carmel sauce and other ‘exotic’ dishes for tourists including guacamole and salsa. After some giggles from the community over the food that tourists might like to eat, we mnaged to uncover some talnted chefs within the group. Pancakes with honey-caramel suace were an absolute winner and with a bit more work we hope to see them served up to tourists at Kidong Cultural Centre by the end of the year!

Tags: alternative livelihoods, ecotourism, Kidong, soap making, sustainable developemnt, tavo west

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Category: Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Community Conservation, Eco-tourism, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Kaya, Logging, Mangroves, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 12 2009 | By: gvikenya

I write to you all today with very tired legs, blistered hands and an aching arm, but with good news!  Today we headed out into Shimoni east to help the members of Friends of Shimoni Forest (the community based organisation we work with) plan, cut and tag the trail through the forest that they will soon be taking tourists on!

Friends of Shimoni Forest have been planning these guided tours though the forest for a while now, and are finally almost ready to go.  The idea is to take tourists on walks through the forest to visit the sacred Kaya’s (traditional religious sites), and to experience the amazing wildlife that exists.

 A view of the mangroves from the trail

There were times of sadness and frustration, as we confirmed our fears that it simply was not possible to get up to the Kaya’s (which are a couple of kilometers past our normal survey transects) without passing through vast swathes of destruction.  The areas of pristine, mature forest are becoming more and more fragmented and patchy.  This was expected though, and maneuvering the tourists through only untouched forest would have been a falsehood (as well as difficult!).  This way they will see both sides – the results of overexploitation and illegal activities, and the amazing coastal forest as it should be.

Some of the stunning forest the trail passes through

Raising awareness of this forest, and the issues that it faces is the single most important thing we can do.  Not only will these guided walks show tourists what is happening, we believe it will raise awareness amongst the local community as well.  Not only this, but it will bring Friends of Shimoni Forest valuable revenue which it can use to fund activities like forest patrols, tree planting, school scholarships, and perhaps will aide in finding alternative livelihoods for some of the people charcoal burning and logging. 

 A charcoal pit ready to burn

The main issue with ideas such as forest patrols, is that the people of these communities simply cannot afford to sacrifice a day earning money for their families, for patrolling as volunteers.  And many of the charcoal burners we have spoken to said they would happily give it up if they could earn money in other ways.  These problems are not easily solved, but there are many avenues to explore.

Tags: Charcoal Burning, Community Conservation, community initiatives, deforestation, Friends of Shimoni Forest, guided tours, Logging, Shimoni Forest, tourist trails, tourist walks

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